


Week One - Comfort

by FriendlyCybird



Series: Forduary 2019 [1]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-22 16:58:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17666501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FriendlyCybird/pseuds/FriendlyCybird
Summary: “What is your name?” Officer Spanem asked.“Stanford Pines.” Ford answered without hesitation. They looked strangely startled. “What is it?”They hesitated a moment longer, then Officer D’lrek said “Come with us, sir.”Ford was very nearly convinced if he did so, he would find himself in prison or worse. What choice did he have though? He obeyed.If it was a prison they led him to, it was more luxurious than he’d ever imagined a prison to be.





	Week One - Comfort

After his sixth world visited in as many weeks, Ford had started needing to count to remember how many places he’d been. The Nightmare Realm, of course. Followed by what he would always think of as Vuiccu’s world, however the thought upset him after the fate she’d suffered on his account. Then the desert, a rainforest, Fudoul’s tunnels. And so on. Small bands of refugees or resistance fighters. In the nearly all of the worlds he’d been to that had intelligent life, the name Bill Cipher was well known and feared. Until the world where it wasn’t. The world where civilization was intact. 

The first sign he was in such a world was the skyscrapers. Buildings hundreds of floors high all around him. The second was the traffic. At the speeds they were going, the vehicles almost looked like normal cars. The differences, the slightly more rounded shape of them all, the lack of distinctive engine roar or smell of gasoline. Finally he was approached by a pair of men, Men! Not just sentient life-forms he presumed male for one reason or another, recognizably humanoid if not outright human men! He realized a beat later his excitement was likely premature, as both wore dark colored peacoats and loose-fitting darker pants that seemed in some way uniform. A stark contrast to Ford’s own lighter colored clothing. There were hundreds of possibilities for why humans could well be the last species he wanted to encounter at the moment. 

The early excitement had frozen him long enough for the men to notice, and approach him. “Sir, it is late.” said one. 

“Where is your home?” said the other. Their voices were clipped and formal and Ford began to suspect they were some sort of authorities. He glanced between them for a moment. Their expressions were concerned. “Sir?” the second one spoke again. 

“It’s not a crime to be out at this hour, is it?” he ventured, attempting to imbue his voice with a note of authority. If he seemed to belong, they likely wouldn’t question him farther. 

Instead, they both looked incredulous. “It is only one lox until cleaning. How far are you from shelter? Do you work nights nearby?” the first pressed. 

Cleaning. Shelter. That didn’t sound good. Ford deflated. Unfortunately, it seemed that without more information, he’d have to risk honesty. “I don’t have a home, here.” he said. “I don’t know where to go for - for cleaning?” that sounded strange to him, like he’d structured the sentence oddly, which was why the last word, familiar yet unfamiliar in connotation, tilted up at the end in question. 

The men glanced at each other, expressions turning to ones of pity. Ford bristled at the looks as they were turned on him. “I’m Officer D’lrek, this is Officer Spanem. We’ll take you to shelter.” 

Ford took a breath, then “Forgive my ignorance, officers, but I don’t even know what you’re offering me shelter from. I don’t understand what ‘cleaning’ entails. I’m from far away you see, another dimension.” Another glance, and Ford’s heart rate picked up. He recognized those expressions. He’d gotten them for years discussing his work investigating the paranormal. Had...had he reached a world where interdimensional travel wasn’t commonplace? 

“What is your name?” Officer Spanem asked. 

“Stanford Pines.” Ford answered without hesitation. They looked strangely startled. “What is it?” 

They hesitated a moment longer, then Officer D’lrek said “Come with us, sir.” 

Ford was very nearly convinced if he did so, he would find himself in prison or worse. What choice did he have though? He obeyed. 

If it was a prison they led him to, it was more luxurious than he’d ever imagined a prison to be. There was a second door just inside and to the right of the first opening into a white-tiled room in which he glimpsed what seemed to be a chair that was possibly made of ceramic? It took him a longer glance than he’d realized to figure out that it was probably a toilet. He’d never conceived of a toilet with armrests before. There was also a curtain blocking off a corner of the room and what might be a sink beside it. Past that door, the room was decorated in earth tones. Brown carpeting and dark green curtains over a tall window. A table at one end of the room, toward the foot of the bed. 

The bed was the largest he’d ever seen, both in width and height. The frame lifted the box spring nearly an entire foot off the ground, and there seemed to be some kind of half-thickness sub-mattress under the main mattress, which had an additional two and a half inch pad across it. It was the softest bed Ford had ever laid on and the moment he made the mistake of doing so any desire to ever move again for the rest of his life fled him. 

He was, he realized, fully dressed and face down on top of the blankets, including what was already proving to be a very warm quilt. He even still had his shoes on. The Officers had left him here, telling him he could stay until morning, but then he would have to “register” which, again, Ford didn’t know what they meant by. The concept sat poorly enough in his gut that he simply decided he would just politely insist on leaving in the morning and seek out another portal. 

When he heard the door open he rolled over and sat up. He blushed when he saw the woman entering. Dark hair that fell straight and silky almost to the impressively low neckline of her lime green strapless dress with a hem that stopped barley below her hip. She was carrying a black leather bag that she set on the bottom corner of the bed. He very carefully met her eyes and she offered a warm smile. “Some pajamas, a change of clothes for tomorrow, a washcloth and soap selection for the shower, a towel of course, and the meal for this evening is hot but you’ll want to put the box with tomorrow’s breakfast in the cool-box to keep it fresh. Did you need anything else?” 

Ford blinked. “I...I can’t accept this.” he said finally. “Shelter is one thing but...I don’t even know who to repay much less have the means to.” 

She blinked at him, looking genuinely surprised. “You said you had no home though?” 

“Yes.” Ford confirmed, hoping she would elaborate. 

She seemed confused a moment, then melted into realization. “These are local accommodations for those with no homes. Typically there’s a registration process for staying here, but you came late. You’ll have to do that in the morning, and then you can meet with someone who will help you pinpoint what led you to this place and help you achieve social reassignment.” she paused then “You must be from very far away.” 

So that explained it. This was some sort of...social welfare program. A good deal more robust than any Ford knew of in his world. “I am.” he answered. “...Farther than you know. As such I have a lot of questions.” She gestured, perhaps mildy, and he asked “First of all - The Cleaning? I’m not - “ 

She looked confused. “The Cleaning. Do they call it something else where you’re from? It’s…” she struggled a moment, like calling up a memory. “Third-nor purification of the atmosphere?” she nodded, falling into almost a recitation. “Repairing particulate damage to structures and ensuring our atmosphere stays breathable.” 

Ford blinked. “Oh.” he said. Yes, he could see how something like that could be dangerous to be caught out in. It was also a fascinating prospect. He had a thousand questions that he knew he probably shouldn’t ask, both for fear of being perceived as stupid and because it seemed the only one he had to ask about such things seemed to only have the equivalent of an elementary school knowledge of the subject. So instead he just said “Yes, we...we call that something different.” 

She nodded. “Enjoy your evening, sir.” then she turned to go. 

For just an instant, Ford had the brief pang of thought that he was being rude. She was halfway out the door before he remembered. “Oh, yes, Thank you…” she stopped and glanced at him and he glanced down her front to check for a name tag, and found himself blushing again. Her dress left very little to the imagination. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name?” 

She flashed a wide grin and “Natalie.” 

The relief that went through him when he heard her name, such a normal, earth-normal, human name. He offered a genuine smile of his own, perhaps his first in some time. “Thank you, Natalie.” 

“Just doing my job.” she answered chipperly before leaving the room and shutting the door behind her. 

Ford stood there for a moment, at a loss for what to do next. He supposed he ought to go through the bag Natalie had left for him. He opened it and was hit with the smell of something delicious. There were two bags within the bag. One clear and full of bottles and bars of soap, the other one silver with a flap-lid. Ford touched the second and found it warm. He opened it and looked inside. There was a chunk of meat that looked something like a piece of roast, and a container of some kind of cooked grain mixed with small chunks of purple and orange. The meat was what the smell was coming from though. He had no idea what kind of meat it was, but it smelled amazing and he carried it, the grains, and what seemed to be a fork, albeit with a fifth prong, to the table in the far corner of the room. 

The meat tasted as heavenly as it smelled, and to his surprise after an experimental taste he found the grains good as well. Mildly sweet, the colorful chunks tasting like cooked root vegetables. When he finished the hot meal, Ford got up to search through the bag again. He felt heavy, and a bit lethargic. Briefly, he was concerned that he’d been drugged. It was an elaborate set-up for bounty hunters. Or perhaps they simply meant to steal his organs. Then he recognized the feeling and shook his head at himself. This was simply fullness after a good meal, something he hadn’t felt since practically gorging himself on that stew Fiddleford made his second week in Gravity Falls. It seemed so long ago now, hard to believe it wasn’t even a full year. 

Ford returned to the bag to inspect the soaps offered. The variety seemed unnecessary but he still took the whole bag, along with the washcloth and towel, to the restroom. Once there he began looking through the soaps, and quickly discovered most of them had names that were entirely alien to him. After a moment's paranoid hesitation, he began opening each bottle to check its scent. He settled on one that reminded him vaguely of lavender.

There was a moment of passing disappointment as he took in the shower. As a rule, Ford preferred baths when available. This was a standing shower, curtained off from the rest of the bathroom and only recognizable as such by the shape of the curtain. For a moment he wondered if it was a shower at all as there was no visible shower head, just pinprick holes high on the walls and parts of the ceiling. Low on one of the walls was a series of buttons, each with some sort of symbol or illustration. Several of them were just arrows. Ford undressed and took a risk, pressing the button that looked like a spray of water. 

He was instantly rewarded with water pouring out of every hole in the wall and ceiling and beating against his skin all at once with an almost massage-like pressure. Ford put out a hand to brace against one of the walls as the water pounded away at exhausted, long-tensed muscles, demanding they start to relax. Ford stayed under the spray without consideration for washing or doing much of anything but enjoying it for much too long. Then the fact that, luxurious as it seemed, this was still a charity building, and as such likely desperately under-funded and there was no telling what sort of water limitations or costs they might have. He turned his focus to the buttons and found one that seemed to display the water only coming from one wall in particular, and pressed that. His guess was correct, and with the more limited, albeit still powerful, spray, Ford was able to take the time to get himself properly clean. 

He hadn’t been actually clean in - well. Honestly he felt a little disgusted thinking about how long it’d been since he had a proper shower or even a bath. He even had the opportunity to wash his hair which was a horrifically tangled mess. Natalie hadn’t said anything about a hairbrush or comb but he thought he might check the bags for one anyway. As it was he spent a few moments once his terribly unruly curls were rinsed just combing through it with his fingers under the shower spray, undoing the worst of the tangles. 

Newly clean and dried with the surprisingly fluffy brown towel which he reflexively wound around his waist for modesty even though he was the only one in the room. He went back to look in the bag, finding a box he hadn’t paid much attention to before. Like a white takeout box. He peeked inside and saw a selection of pastries, Closing the box, he turned and sought out the “cool-box” Natalie had referenced and spotted it beside the table. A little black refrigeration unit that he opened and left the pastries inside. Then he returned to the bag. 

The pile of cloth he’d shoved to the side consisted of two pairs of pants, two shirts, and a pullover sweater. It was obvious what was meant as daywear and what was meant as pajamas. One pair of pants was plaid, the other the same dark slacks the officers had been wearing. One shirt was clearly too large and bore an unfamiliar word across the front in a distorted, green bubble-font. The other was a plain undershirt. The sweater was a green-based black. Ford dressed in the pajamas and folded the daywear, setting it back in the bag which he then moved to the floor. 

Then he walked around to the side of the bed, peeled back no less than four layers of sheet and blanket, and climbed underneath. Comfortably warm, clean, and full for the first time in over a year and Ford felt the exhaustion of the life he’d been living sink on him all at once. He hoped he wasn’t expected up at a certain time for this registration, or even how he’d handle the process given his circumstances. His options were complete honesty or… well, no one had shown any indications of violence toward him. He could probably make a break for it any time he wanted without trouble. If it did turn violent then, well, at least he’d know the truth about what kind of people he was dealing with. 

For now, at least, they seemed kind. Though three was a small sample size for any society, the generous accommodations for the homeless and robust social welfare program seemed to indicate kindness was a trait of the society. If so, he was fortunate to have come here. It was tempting, he realized, to give serious thought to staying. If Natalie was correct, they were opening a path for him to join their society, to find a place here. Perhaps this registration would be worth looking into. Except, he reminded himself, as firmly as he was capable of under heavy blankets on a soft mattress, there were multiple reasons that was a bad idea. Not the least of which that any society that appeared this gracious had to have some twisted secrets at its core. More pressing though, was the need to continue his mission. Seek out supplies, build a weapon, destroy Bill Cipher. 

For tonight though, he could accept the small comforts this place had to offer. Good food, hot shower, soft bed. His mission would be there for him in the morning.


End file.
